


transatlanticism

by uro_boros



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2624081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uro_boros/pseuds/uro_boros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they meet, Erwin’s married. Levi takes one look at the ring on his finger, twists his lips, and says, “I don’t fuck married guys.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	transatlanticism

When they meet, Erwin’s married. Levi takes one look at the ring on his finger, twists his lips, and says, “I don’t fuck married guys.”

Erwin nods. Erwin wears three-piece suits and worry in the wrinkles by the corners of his eyes. He’s nursing a whiskey that he’s been working at all night. “I respect that,” he says. “But I’m not asking you to fuck me.”

"Then what are you asking for?" 

"Company."

"Fuck," Levi snorts, shaking his head. This has bad idea written all over it and he knows it. But Levi’s life has been a series of bad decisions, things he did despite knowing better not to; he doesn’t regret them, really, but he isn’t proud of them either. "Why not?"

"You don’t have to," Erwin tells him. He means it, too, and Levi knows he does, even if the open turning of Erwin’s body in his direction is hopeful.

He has a vague suspicion of how this will all end. It doesn’t stop him from agreeing, from wanting things that aren’t his and have never been his—knowing how it ends never has. That’s always been the root of his problems.

"It’s fine." He waves down the bartender to order another drink. 

Erwin doesn’t press further, but the edges of his mouth curl, like they have a secret nestled into their corners. Maybe they do.

—

Company has different definitions.

It’s lunch dates that happen more often at four o’clock than noon, because Erwin works too much and doesn’t know how to say no. Erwin likes seafood and exotic flavors, restaurants with windows that span from the ceiling to the floor, but the first time Levi drags him to a small Jewish corner-deli and orders a ninety-nine cent bagel, he looks overwhelmed. Erwin adapts quickly, bounding back with a smile that’s more or less genuine. 

He gets two bagels, one with lox and one with butter; they sit in a park near Erwin’s office building, Erwin sucking crumbs off his thumb. It’s autumn, then, and the wind is beginning to bite with winter chill. 

Erwin never kisses Levi.

That’s one of the unspoken rules of this.

Sometimes he leans so close that Levi thinks he might—but the ring is still on his finger and Erwin must think better of it. 

Company is also text messages at random hours. During meetings, during traffic, in the middle of the night.

Levi’s watched him text before: Erwin isn’t particularly proficient at it, the pads of his thumbs square and huge on his small, sleek smartphone. He has to squint to read the screen because he denies needing the glasses he carries around in his briefcase. 

Company is Erwin washing the dishes, his French-cuffed sleeves rolled up, in the small sink of Levi’s apartment and Hanji storming in because she has no concept of personal space. It’s Hanji cackling and asking when Levi got such a handsome boyfriend.

It’s Erwin demurring and hiding his left hand from Hanji’s line of sight the entire night.

It’s Levi realizing he’s made a huge mistake and that fucking might have been easier.

—

Erwin met the woman who would become his wife in college. He loves her, he tells Levi once, so much that he’ll never leave her despite his growing sense of dissatisfaction in their marriage. It goes unsaid that there’s a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone.

Levi stops him before he can tell the rest of the story.

"It’s not my business," he says frankly. "I don’t want to know and I don’t care to know."

"That’s fair," Erwin agrees.

They don’t talk about it again. As far as Levi knows, she’s a face without a name that sits in a lacquered frame on Erwin’s desk. It’s easier this way, is what he tells himself. 

It’s easier; but it doesn’t stop him from wondering and from anxiety sparking and twisting in his chest. Don’t ask becomes a mantra, each repetition making it lose a sliver of its comfort; the law of diminishing returns at play.

It’s fine until a week later Erwin knocks at his door in the middle of the night. Autumn has given away to winter and Erwin’s cheeks are red from cold and alcohol.

Erwin is drunk and Levi should stop this. A better man would—but Levi’s always been a creature made of lesser stuff than man. 

"I haven’t touched her in months," slurs Erwin, pawing at Levi’s fly with a hand made clumsy by alcohol. His breath reeks where he drags his mouth across the skin of Levi’s jaw. "Haven’t slept in the same bed, haven’t kissed her, all I think about is  _you_.”

Levi wants it to be true so badly that it hurts.

That’s the problem, isn’t it: Levi wants. He’s always wanted.

"Erwin," he says, pushing at one of Erwin’s shoulders. "Erwin, don’t do something you’ll regret in the morning."

It’s not about what Levi regrets, because if this happened, he wouldn’t regret it. Creatures less than human weren’t allowed regrets.

Erwin would, though. Levi pushes harder.

"Don’t," Erwin pleads quietly, touching his forehead to Levi’s shoulder. His drunken bravado spills out of him. "Don’t, please, don’t make me stop touching you. All I’ve wanted is to touch you." 

"I’ll put you to bed," Levi says. Erwin’s face and eyelashes are wet where he’s rested his face against Levi’s shoulder; Levi gives him the dignity of not asking why. 

Finally, Erwin moves. Slowly, with the stiffness of a man much older than himself, he lets Levi maneuver him into the bed. “Stay?” he asks, settling under the heavy covers.

Levi closes his eyes. Breathes. 

"Stay, please?" Erwin asks again. "Please."

Levi is not a good man; he slinks under the sheets and blankets to curl against Erwin’s side.

At least in the dark, he can pretend this isn’t happening. In the dark, the cool metal of the ring on the hand Erwin cups under his chin is matched by a ring on Levi’s own hand. 

The kiss, when it comes, is gentle, with all the soft exploration given to someone beloved. 

It doesn’t stop it from tasting bitter and stale with the remnants of Erwin’s transgressions. 

Levi shudders. 

"Are you cold?" Erwin whispers, like his voice might break this moment. It should—they should shatter it and save themselves. Levi’s silence is taken as a yes, because Erwin continues: "I’ll warm you up, I promise. I’ll take care of you." 

Levi wants to laugh. He wants to shake out of his skin. 

This is a mistake, he knows, but he doesn’t stop it.

Instead, he lets Erwin cover his body with his own, lets Erwin hitch one of Levi’s legs up around his waist and rock his hips. He lets Erwin call him things,  _beautiful,_ _darling, perfect_. He takes it greedily.

It’s after, with the evidence of his guilt drying on his skin and Erwin asleep in the bed, that Levi lets himself fall apart. No one’s watching but the stars—Levi is cosmically insignificant and they don’t care about his fuck ups.

—

In the morning, there’s breakfast and Erwin in wrinkled clothes.

"This can’t happen again," he says, breaking the yellow of a sunny-side egg with his toast. He’s brewed coffee that Levi only buys because Erwin’s become a semi-regular feature in his apartment. Its smell fills the entire kitchen.

Levi swallows around the lump in his throat.

"Don’t be stupid," Levi tells him. "I know. I’ve done this before."

It’s hurt that flashes briefly across Erwin’s face. Levi tells himself not to look in the time it takes before Erwin manages to school his expression into a neutral smile. “Of course,” he says, looking down at his plate. “Thank you for understanding.”

They eat in silence.

Erwin hesitates at the door as he’s leaving. He looks torn as to what to do. In the end, he leaves, his farewell a quiet, confused murmur that sounds almost final.

Good, thinks a vicious, small part of Levi. But in the end, even that part fades. He’s mostly just tired.

He curls into the small corner by the fridge, listening to its dull hum until it relaxes the furious tightening in his chest. Eventually, he convinces himself to call Hanji. He tells her about Erwin and the ring on his finger and about the exhaustion creeping into his bones.

She comes over with bags of alcohol and a glint in her eye, sitting next to him on the kitchen floor.

"We should get drunk," she declares, pulling out a plastic bottle of cheap vodka. "Really drunk." 

"I think drinking has been at the heart of the majority of my problems here," Levi says to her. It doesn’t matter, really, because he’s reaching for the shot she’s poured.

"No," Hanji clucks. "Drinking is the solution!" She toasts him enthusiastically, downing the shot. "Cheapest alcohol I could find," she beats her chest with a fist, wheezing. "Burns really good."

He snorts and tilts his head back, swallowing. “Like old times,” he agrees. It does burn. The plastic bottled alcohol always does.

Old times finds them wandering drunkenly through town a few hours later, streetlights blurring in Levi’s vision. He’s not sure why they’re here, except Hanji suggested it because it was snowing and she liked the snow. “Look,” he says, gesturing at the peacoated-back of someone in front of them, a petite woman clasped to their side. “It looks like Erwin. Big fucker.”

Hanji giggles. 

He even manages to crack a smile until looks-like-Erwin turns around and is Erwin.

His wife is beautiful, is Levi’s first thought, through the haze in his head. Of course she is—he’s never imagined anything less of her, the few times he’s given her thought. It’s not surprising, but the sudden lancing of hurt in his chest is.

"Oh," breathes Hanji quietly by his side, tugging at his elbow. "Levi, let’s go."

"Levi," Erwin greets, startled.

He rubs his palm hard into the socket of his eye. The pleasant buzz in his head has given away to something cold and sober. “Hey.”

Hanji tugs at his elbow again, more insistent.

"Hello," Erwin says. To his wife, he adds, "Levi’s a friend of mine from work."

"A friend," Levi echoes. There are bruises on his neck, on his hips, on his thighs—they throb, softly. "We sometimes get bagels during our breaks."

"Yes," Erwin says stiffly. "We do."

"That’s nice," his wife says. "But Erwin, we’ll be late for our dinner reservations."

"Of course," Erwin smiles down at her. "Shall we? Goodbye, Levi." They’re so picture perfect that Levi feels sick.

It hits him all at once. Everything. The months of this—Erwin, soft and quiet and sincere to Levi, but hesitant. Scared. Levi laughs. It’s not a nice laugh given the way Erwin startles at the sound of it. “Don’t,” Hanji says at his side. “Don’t do this. He’s not worth it.”

"He fucked me last night," Levi tells Erwin’s wife, still laughing. It bubbles up from some place dark and petty inside of him, the place that is small and self-loathsome. "He fucked me last night instead of fucking you. I’m sorry. I told him when this started that I didn’t fuck married men. Does that make me the liar or him?"

The answer is that they’re both liars. The answer is, Levi’s tired of it.

He doesn’t stay for the inevitable reaction. He’s seen things burn before; he doesn’t need to watch this.

"I’m sorry," he mutters to Hanji on the walk back to his apartment.

Hanji blinks at him. “Why?” she questions, twining an arm through one of his. “He deserved it.” 

—

There aren’t pictures to toss out or anything dramatic like that. Erwin’s presence in his apartment extended to a bag of coffee in his cupboard and creamer in the fridge. 

Winter fades to spring.

He turns his phone off and leaves it off. There are only two people who really used it, and Hanji’s just as content to barge into his apartment as she is to call him.

He finds himself again, sometime when the last of the winter’s snow is thawing and the trees are beginning to bud tiny green leaves. Erwin begins to feel distant.

Levi catches himself thinking of him at times though. It happens. He tells himself it’s allowed and doesn’t dwell. With time, it gets easier, the way all things inevitably do.

It’s not the first time Levi’s moved on and continuing is simply a matter of inertia. It’s easier to keep going than it is to stop.

He’s in the park by Erwin’s office-building when someone settles down on the bench next to him. “Bagel?” the presence offers, holding a bag out with his left hand. There’s a faint ring of untanned skin around one finger—like it used to house a wedding band around it.

"You’re an asshole," Levi sighs, and Erwin laughs.

"I’m sorry," he says, and he could be saying it to his being an asshole, but Levi knows he’s not. They both know he’s not.

"I ended your marriage," Levi says.

Erwin shrugs. He fishes out a bagel from the bag, taking a bite. “It ended itself, really. She’s dating someone new. She seems happier.” 

"And you?"

"I was seeing someone, but I messed that up. Now, I’m trying to bribe them back with the best bagels in the city."

Levi snorts. “How’s that going?”

"I don’t know," Erwin murmurs, "but I’m hoping to find out."

"Fuck," Levi says, shaking his head. "What are you looking for this time, company again?"

"No," Erwin says, "ideally, a lasting and loving relationship where I make up for everything else. Starting with bagels." He waves the bag in front of Levi.

Levi takes a bagel. “Okay,” he says, “why not.”


End file.
